Rethinking the Human in the Darwinian Novel
Zola, Hardy, and Utopian Fiction

Niall Sreenan

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Studies In Comparative Literature 51

Legenda

  18 December 2025  •  184pp

ISBN: 978-1-781888-47-6 (hardback)  •  RRP £95, $120, €120

ISBN: 978-1-781888-48-3 (paperback, forthcoming)

ISBN: 978-1-781888-49-0 (JSTOR ebook)

ModernEnglishFictionPhilosophy

Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution began a revolution in thought, displacing the human from the centre of the natural order and consigning it to the same ‘struggle for life’ as its animal ancestors. This profoundly discomforting truth created shock waves in literature and culture which reverberate still.

Sreenan revisits the legacy of Darwin’s thought in works by Thomas Hardy and Émile Zola, and in utopian fictions by Samuel Butler, Aldous Huxley, and the more contemporary Michel Houellebecq. Tracing how narrative fiction has responded to humanity’s traumatic dethronement, the book explores themes of hereditary fate, violence, sexual compe­tition, and utopian desire. Drawing on an array of theoretical resources — from Deleuzian biophilosophy to psychoanalysis — Sreenan reveals how both literary realism and utopianism stage a tension between Darwinian pessimism and an affirm­ation of human existence.

Niall Sreenan is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of St Andrews.

Bibliography entry:

Sreenan, Niall, Rethinking the Human in the Darwinian Novel: Zola, Hardy, and Utopian Fiction, Studies In Comparative Literature, 51 (Legenda, 2025)

First footnote reference: 35 Niall Sreenan, Rethinking the Human in the Darwinian Novel: Zola, Hardy, and Utopian Fiction, Studies In Comparative Literature, 51 (Legenda, 2025), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Sreenan, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Sreenan, Niall. 2025. Rethinking the Human in the Darwinian Novel: Zola, Hardy, and Utopian Fiction, Studies In Comparative Literature, 51 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Sreenan 2025: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Sreenan 2025: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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